


Constellations III: The Moon

by thehousewedestroyed



Series: The Real Relationship Was The House We Destroyed Along The Way [13]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, Threesome - M/M/M, past Sirius Black/Remus Lupin/James Potter, they're all so old, underage crush mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-03
Updated: 2018-03-03
Packaged: 2019-03-26 10:42:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13856148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thehousewedestroyed/pseuds/thehousewedestroyed
Summary: NINETEEN YEARS LATER LOL





	Constellations III: The Moon

The thing about the inevitable was, no matter how long it took, it still  _happened_.

Remus knew this. He knew it in a way that was not particularly welcome. He knew the planet could circle the sun twenty-four times and the stars would not change place. Not to a stargazer. The shape they made would still be the same.

He knew because two hundred and eighty-eight times, the moon rose full and Sirius was there. Dog and wolf.

When Sirius had collided with Harry, it had—unbelievably, inexplicably—worked. Remus hadn’t realised how it had sat in his heart, the need for someone to love Sirius properly, and for Harry to be kept close to them. It felt nothing like destiny, this ridiculous coupling, but it felt right anyway. Remus could settle back into being the counterweight, between his own family and this one. And some time while it was beginning, Harry grew older than James ever was, and Remus realised he’d stopped comparing Harry to James, and instead compared James to Harry. This Potter loved this Black. That was a better story.

When Harry had asked for Remus’ old syllabus, on his way to teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts, Remus cried. Sirius teased him, making Remus’ heart flicker when it was vulnerable. It was like twisting a piece of a jigsaw puzzle and suddenly seeing where it really fit. Harry where he belonged.

He should have known then—he was always telling himself he should have known things. Where Harry went, Sirius would follow. And Remus would find himself trailing shortly behind, which was how he ended up back in the Forbidden Forest a on a full moon. His own  _son_ was somewhere on campus—hopefully studying for his N.E.W.T.S—and Remus was chasing Nifflers with a great black dog who still bounded around like a puppy. Sirius could be found at Hogwarts as often as not, haunting Professor Potter’s office. Their delightful little flat in Hogsmeade, whose couch Remus had become quite familiar with, was not close enough for Sirius to resume his role as the menace of Hogwarts.

At first, it was a joke made somewhere in their second bottle of wine. Sirius  _was_ good at teaching Transfiguration. He was hell to deal with when he was bored, and with Harry off being Professor Potter, Sirius was getting bored. Remus could only keep him so busy wrangling his menagerie of monsters at home, and he welcomed the company with Tonks so often working and Teddy at school. And then Professor Holliday got tenure in Portugal, and Sirius said something ridiculous like; ‘Well, I’m here all the time  _anyway_.’

‘You’re like a dog with a bone,’ Remus told him.

‘Of course I am, Moony,’ Sirius said. ‘But really… why not?’

‘I’m not the one you’d have to convince,’ Remus had said, full of confidence that the Headmistress would put a stop to this dangerous train of thought.

He should have known not to underestimate Minerva McGonagall.

One education intensive later and Sirius, against all odds and sense, was an  _astonishingly good_ Transfiguration Professor. True, Remus often heard this through Harry’s complaining—‘He can’t just teach  _my_  students to transfigure hinkypunks into lamp-posts!’—and he often needed moral support when marking piles of essays. Remus, staying overnight in Hogsmeade after transporting a fresh brood of hinkypunks to Harry (or whatever monsters he needed for class, or that Hagrid might find interesting), coached him through it.

All these things, he should have known. A Lupin, a Black, and a Potter, back at Hogwarts again. And yet he was completely blindsided when, a few years after Teddy graduated, McGonagall invited him to her office with Hagrid. Hagrid was retiring from Care of Magical Creatures.

Remus hadn’t meant to laugh.

He should have volunteered to teach Divination. It was like someone pointing out stars in the night sky, drawing a shape over and over again, and Remus seeing nothing but stars until suddenly the dots connected.

How strange that he hadn’t seen it before.

Three of them, back at Hogwarts, back in orbit.

Tonks was Tonks about it, and he kissed her for it. She kicked on the door of Harry and Sirius’ flat with a tank of tadpoles balanced precariously on a box of his clothes, hollering for them to let her in before they had frogspawn for a doormat. Really, it was more surprising that he’d spent twenty years in one place. Since Teddy started school, they didn’t see each other except when she was home from Auror missions and him from chasing monsters, and it was alright. It was comfortable. Teddy had moved out, and they drifted out as well. She talked about a witch she’s been spending more time with, and it didn’t hurt. Love had always slipped and slid around him—waxing and waning. This did too.

After all, there were wizards Remus was spending more time with. He didn’t go so far as to move in with them, but the adjacent flat was free. So he still had the joys of Sirius’ singing through the thin walls, and Harry accidentally hexed a hole into his kitchen (which they didn’t fix). They tolerated his wandering boggart pups, returning them in rudely-labeled shoeboxes shoved through the kitchen-hole. They drank wine on Fridays, curled up under one blanket on the couch.

The next shift was not so tangible, and not so terrible.

Harry at forty was not Harry at thirteen. Remus at sixty was not Remus at thirty-three. Sirius at sixty-one was quite a lot like Sirius at fourteen, however. Harry sometimes remarked upon the fact to Remus over a bottle of wine. Sirius argued for the distinguished stripes of silver in his hair, and Remus pointed out the crow’s feet around his eyes, and Sirius grumbled at him for it. Harry’s scar had faded until it was only obvious as a gap in his eyebrow; the salt-and-pepper in the neat beard he’d grown was all that gave his age away. Sirius was quite vocally appreciative: Remus less vocal, but still besotted with the man Harry had grown into. He was sixty—he wasn’t  _dead_. Harry was handsome, and Sirius still a sight naked no matter how many times Remus had seen him transform. Remus never minded how frequently they forgot to lock the door (or apologise) if he let himself in and interrupted them in the act. They were still at it so much, it wasn’t realistically avoidable. And there was the time Harry caught him glancing through the kitchen-hole (Sirius was far too occupied to notice) and gave him a long, considering look that Remus met and didn’t break.

It was only a week later that Sirius caught up with him in the tapestry passage as classes were finishing for the afternoon. They fell into step, and they slowed, and then stopped—which of them had stopped first? Did it matter?—at a nook beside a slitted window.

‘Do you remember when we kissed here? In fifth year?’ Sirius murmured, as if they hadn’t kissed in every room in the castle as Marauders.

But he did remember, and he was nodding. And Sirius was crowding him, flicking the hair out of his eyes and bumping their noses together.

All the air left Remus’ lungs at once, leaving him only enough to whisper; ‘Yes,’ before Sirius’ lips were ghosting over his for the first time in twenty-four years.

Remus felt their mouths fall open, the soft wash of breath close enough to taste, before he twisted his neck to press his forehead against Sirius’. He drew a deep sigh from himself, hand trailing from Sirius’ shoulder down to his elbow. The touch kept them close, but no closer.

‘Did Harry put you up to this?’ Remus asked.

Sirius grinned. ‘This part was my idea.’

Remus huffed a laugh. ‘Good idea.’

He stepped back, but he was still spun into Sirius’ space. It may not be right now, but there was a certainty as they fell back into step that their last kiss would not be one they shared twenty-four years ago.

Sirius had plucked that thread between them, and it was taut again, the note ringing. A tune that stayed Remus’ head all day; the song, the story, of Sirius-and-Remus. Not doomed to collide, but… inevitable.

Even if you didn’t believe in destiny, sometimes destiny believed in you.

It was Friday, the three of them huddled a little closer on the couch, when Remus threw the blanket off to fetch more wine from the kitchen. What happened next was so unlike Sirius' theatrics. Harry walked with Remus into the kitchen, backed him up against the counter and kissed him. Remus was breathless, holding Harry’s shoulders and ignoring the bottle rolling from his hands to pour wine across the tiles. It was Sirius’ voice murmuring the vanishing spell. Sirius cupping the back of his neck and tangling long, gnarled fingers into his hair, stealing him from Harry for the kiss he’d promised. It was all so easy. They drew him in, hands all over him even as their mouths couldn’t resist one another, and Remus buried his nose in Harry’s neck and took in the smell of him, mapping its intricacies, licking the pulse under the skin. He nipped a little harder than he ought to and grinned when Harry gasped.

‘He _bit_ me,’ Harry tattled to Sirius. Sirius raised an eyebrow.

‘You can never trust a werewolf,’ Remus said.

And they took him to their bed, where there was space for three if they didn’t mind being tangled, being warm, naked, slick, pressed together. As easy as gravity, as easy as weaving a pattern they always remembered, a tune they knew by heart.

After—though not really after everything, but after they’d exhausted themselves for the night—they sprawled on one another. Remus had his head on Sirius’ shoulder and his hand in Harry’s hair.

‘This is all rather unprofessional,’ Remus commented. The pair of them burst out laughing, hoarsely.

‘Come on,’ Harry said. ‘I’ve fancied you since I was thirteen.’

‘ _Harry_ ,’ Remus was slightly aghast. ‘You did  _not_. Back then?’

‘I mean, I didn’t  _know_ I did, but I definitely did,’ Harry said, as if that made sense.

Remus groaned. Sirius’ fingers skittered along his spine. ‘You are very easy to fall in love with, Moony.’

‘I think I always wanted to be you, a little bit,’ Harry mused. Remus had to bury his face in Sirius’ armpit, so neither of them would tease him for crying. They jostled him until nobody was likely to wake up with pins and needles in any of their many limbs. Remus ended up nestled between them, facing a high window with a clear sky.

He counted the stars, tracing invisible lines with his finger as they drifted to sleep around him. If it was only a story, it was a good one.


End file.
